Approximately seventy percent of the surface of the Earth is covered with water. Therefore, mankind often seeks to deploy into Earth's waters various waterborne payloads. As one example, scientists often deploy into the oceans various sensors for monitoring conditions (e.g., wind and wave height) and seawater properties (e.g., temperature, pH and salinity). As another example, civilian and military objectives often require the deployment into the oceans of various vehicles, such as autonomous surface vehicles (“ASV”) and autonomous underwater vehicles (“AUV”).
Waterborne payloads are commonly deployed into the water from watercraft (e.g., boats and ships). To avoid damaging the payload (or at least reduce the likelihood of damaging the payload), the watercraft typically slows or stops during payload deployment, thereby allowing careful placement of the waterborne payload into the water. However, the ability to slow (let alone stop) a watercraft on the high seas is highly dependent on ambient weather conditions. Deployment of a waterborne payload from a watercraft under adverse weather conditions may become impractical without assuming a substantial risk to the watercraft and/or the payload.
Furthermore, because of the vastness of Earth's oceans, waterborne payloads are also deployed into the water from aircraft. The drop from the aircraft and, ultimately, the impact with the water presents the risk of damaging the waterborne payload. The risk of damage due to impact with the water may be mitigated by using a parachute. However, the introduction of a parachute presents the risk of parachute entanglement.
Accordingly, those skilled in the art continue with research and development efforts in the field of waterborne payload deployment.